


both kinds of luck

by lynnpaper (27beansprouts)



Series: togruta, negotiator and human disaster [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood Loss, Fluff, Gen, Whump, ahsoka gets injured bad but i would never let her die, hurts a little at first but we get a nice big dose of snips and skyguy fentanyl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29694747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27beansprouts/pseuds/lynnpaper
Summary: She touches her stomach. Warm liquid seeps from the spaces between her fingers, and she looks down in wonder, only to find a gaping wound where her skin should be smooth. Everything is red, wet, sticky. It’s on her hands, her saber hilts, her tunic, the rocks, the ground —
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: togruta, negotiator and human disaster [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129013
Comments: 20
Kudos: 99





	both kinds of luck

**Author's Note:**

> emotional baggage dump! how delightful!

In some kind of sick, twisted way, Ahsoka is prepared for it.

Dying, that is.

She doesn’t feel the stabbing pain so much as she feels the unfamiliar, sharp pressure. In, out, pulling layers of her skin away with it, ripping through her flesh. So quickly, she becomes a statistic in the mission casualty report.

She touches her stomach. Warm liquid seeps from the spaces between her fingers, and she looks down in wonder, only to find a gaping wound where her skin should be smooth. Everything is red, wet, sticky. It’s on her hands, her saber hilts, her tunic, the rocks, the ground —

“ _Ahsoka!_ ”

Anakin’s scream curdles her blood. She’s never heard her name said like that before. It’s drowned in anguish, fear, something so desperate she cannot describe it. She looks up, still reeling from the shock of being _impaled by a kriffing spear_ , to see Anakin running to her, slipping his arms under her armpits, pulling her bloody hands away from her stomach to replace them with his own.

In the back of her mind, it dimply registers that the blinding pain lancing through her gut is nothing like she's ever experienced before. But that pain is secondary to the absolute agony racing down her bond with her master. 

“No, no, no, _no, no_ —“

She doesn’t understand Huttese, but the flurry of curses which he lets slip does little to comfort her. It doesn’t hurt in the moment, really, but that’s probably a result of her heart pumping adrenaline through her veins — pumping her blood right out of her body onto the dirt.

Anakin presses hard on her stomach, the only thing he knows to do, a futile attempt to staunch the bleed. But field medicine only gets you so far. Field medicine doesn’t prepare you for the child bleeding out in your arms. An artery must have ruptured, because the bleeding won’t stop.

Anakin knows he has to stay calm. An impossible task. Here he is, using the Force to hold the blood inside her body despite it wanting nothing more than to get out. He lowers her to the ground and kneels so her head is resting on his knees, placing a blood-covered palm on her cheek, stroking gently, more to calm himself than his padawan.

“Ahsoka,” Anakin says urgently. “Keep your eyes open.”

The hand on her cheek rubs a little harder, rousing her from her almost-slumber. Her eyelids are slipping shut, and no matter how hard she tries, it feels as if lead weighs have been attached to them, pulling them down, down, down —

“Don’t go to sleep yet. Hey. Ahsoka.”

She picks up frantic note in her Master’s voice, but it’s the least of her worries. She’s dizzy, vision is reduced to black vignettes, fluttering in and out of darkness as she forces her eyes open with an effort which doubles by the second —

“Snips, just hold on a little longer. Please.”

He’s desperate now. Limbs which feel like they’re made from duracrete sink into the rough ground. Her head lolls in his lap and she whimpers, wanting nothing more than to give in to the rolling tide of exhaustion. How easy it would be to let go —

“Please, Ahsoka. Hold on, alright? Please. Hold on for me.”

She is very small, and she has lost a lot of blood, and she needs medical attention right now. These three things she knows for sure. Anakin is on the verge of breaking down completely. This she also knows for sure. She doesn’t want her Master to descend into hysterics, so she tries for a smile — why, she doesn’t know, but smiles are supposed to be reassuring, and he could really use some reassurance.

Ahsoka opens her mouth to say something but all that comes out is a dribble of blood. Anakin’s expression changes in a split second from crippling worry to abject horror.

There are clones behind him. Kix? Kix, with his medpack. Kix and his skilled hands which have saved countless lives but held countless others as they died. By the end of today, Ahsoka will be one or the other.

She watches as Kix shakes his head. Even with his helmet on, she knows the expression on his face. Defeat.

Anakin wants to scream at him to do _something_ , anything, try to save his padawan. Try again if they fail. When they fail. Try again even then, after her heart has stopped beating and her glowing signature has disappeared from the Living Force. But there is no point wasting precious supplies on hopeless cases.

In that split second, Anakin knows what he has to do.

He is not a healer. So much is true. He destroys all life he touches, preferring to build machines, droids, mechanics. Life is too fragile for him to hold, and that is all he can think of as he starts to channel his own life force into the bleeding form in his arms.

Ahsoka wants to say something, tell Anakin it’s alright, that she’s not in pain, that she’s ready, that she’s lived enough to know love and joy and she has seen the good in this shattered galaxy. Yet the words don’t come out, and her throat has closed in, keeping the words caged in a mouth which only tastes copper.

His healing is shoddy at best, but there’s little chance he can do any more harm than Ahsoka has already faced.

“It’s okay,” Anakin says softly, but the shakiness in his voice betrays the calm front he tries to put up. “It’s okay, Ahsoka. You can let go.”

It’s only when she catches the glisten of tear tracks down his cheeks that Ahsoka realises she’s never seen her Master cry.

She can’t hear him anymore, and she can’t see him, and the feeling of his hands on her is beginning to fade. But through the bond, every one of his emotions is raging bright, a waterfall crashing into her mind. He’s opened the bond completely, shields torn to the ground like flimsi, this side of him laid bare.

It is only now that Ahsoka notices the emotions Anakin hasnever let her see.

Fear — that he will lose his padawan; the closest thing he has to a sister, a daughter; the only one he will ever trust as much as his own Master.

Regret — that he didn’t get to her in time; that he took his eyes off her too long, allowed her to put herself in danger; that he will never get the chance to tell her everything he wishes he could.

Hate — at the Council, for allowing a child to fight on the front lines and die as a result; at the galaxy, and its unmeasurable cruelty for taking away everything he has ever loved; at himself, for failing her.

Love. So much love.

It pours into her, drowning her in a sea of warmth, comfort, consolation. _It’s okay_ , he says. _I’m so proud of you_. _I’m sorry._ Everything he wishes he said to her in life, but only realised too late that no matter how long he waited, the right time would never come.

If this is death, she thinks, it isn’t so bad.

But there is no death. There is the Force, calling to her in the voices of Jedi long passed, promising eternal peace. She knows she has fought well.

She sees herself through his eyes. Still, pale, bloody. His hands are pressed to the gaping wound in her stomach, and there’s something bright — a tendril, perhaps, trickling from his fingers into her flesh like a miniature glowing stream. She’s seen it before, in the Halls —

_Oh._

_That’s_ what he’s doing.

She almost laughs, remembering how Anakin once pledged never to try and heal again, after he managed to kill a cactus, attempted to bring it back using the Force, and reduced it to ashes in the process. _Hopefully I don’t burst into flames_ , she thinks hysterically.

Her head is clearer now. And it’s barely there, nothing but a whisper through the bond, but there nonetheless.

_I love you._

She’s slipping under the next second. Her only regret is not saying it back.

* * *

His padawan looks so small, floating in a bacta tank made to hold species five times her size. The wound on her stomach is still a grisly crimson, but knitting itself back together slowly, surely.

 _She shouldn’t have survived_ , Vokara Che had told him, once the healers had strapped an oxygen mask and attached countless wires and monitors to her broken body. _She shouldn’t have survived._

But it is not a Healer’s call to make — whether a patient should have lived or died. It is their call to treat that patient, regardless of how they _didn’t_ die. Her body is young, and strong, and should bear no permanent damage, even though the weapon ruptured her intestines. She made it back in time — just.

Twelve hours in the bacta tank and she’s out, laid gently on a sterile bed with sterile sheets in a sterile gown, fresh dressings wrapped around her midsection. She will have a scar. One to add to a collection which will only grow as this war goes on.

When Obi-Wan enters the room to find Anakin slumped in a chair beside his unconscious padawan, the only thing he can think to do is retrieve a blanket from the cabinet by the door and drape it over Anakin's sleeping form. The chair in the medbay may as well have his name on it. He’s sat here countless hours, waiting for the person in the bed next to him to wake up.

Anakin is holding one of his padawan’s hands — the one without a tube running into it, transfusing blood into her to make up for all that she’s lost, some of which has now dried on his hands, caked beneath his nails and in the crevices between his fingers. He hasn’t even attempted to wash it off.

Obi-Wan knows none of it is his. There’s barely a scratch on him.

It’s all Ahsoka’s.

The thought makes him sick. He doesn’t know what happened on the mission, only that it went wrong, that they were ambushed, and that the young togruta was injured. Badly.

He hadn’t missed the whispers from clones in the halls on the way here. _She should have died_ , they said. _It was a fatal wound_. _There’s no way anybody could have survived that, Jedi or no._

Yet she did.

Fetching a washcloth and basin of water, Obi-Wan sets to work scrubbing the grime from Anakin’s hands. The glove is easy to remove, and he leaves it on the bedside table to bring back to his quarters to wash. He notes with relief that no blood has gotten into the mechanisms of his prosthetic. That would be absolute hell to clean.

His flesh hand not so simple. The blood is caked on thick, and the water in the basin is a sickly dark pink when Obi-Wan is done.

Anakin doesn’t stir. When Obi-Wan guides his hand back into Ahsoka’s and gently intertwines their fingers again, Anakin only tightens his grip, mumbling something incoherent, the sound a low noise in the back of his throat. 

* * *

“Master?”

Force, her throat is _parched_. And her stomach aches, a deep, burning throb in her gut. She recalls being stabbed. Impaled. Yes, that’s it.

“Ahsoka.” 

He’s up in a second, scanning her over. The blanket has been pulled down so it only covers her up to her hips. The wrappings around her stomach are more for support than protection — after all, the bacta healed most of the skin-deep damage, leaving only a pale, tender ring of scar tissue to remind her of her very close brush with death.

For a second, Anakin looks like he doesn’t know what to say. ‘ _I’m glad you’re not dead_ ,’ maybe. ‘ _Are you in pain?’_ perhaps? Should he go down the guilt path, with ‘ _I’m sorry I failed to protect you_?’ He feels like he’s said it all before.

Ahsoka breaks the stillness by holding out a hand, grabbing the air meekly. Anakin leans forward and takes her into his ams, careful with her torso, one hand pressed gently against her back lek.

“I’m not dead,” she says, not surprised, but not entirely convinced either.

“It appears so, Snips,” Anakin replies, trying for a smile as he pulls way just enough to make eye contact.

“Lucky me,” she says. Her skin tingles, and the cloying, saccharine scent of bacta still lingers all over her.

There’s a glass of water on the bedside table. Before she can shift over to take it, Anakin is holding it up to her so she doesn’t have to jostle herself around. She accepts it with a grateful “thank you.”

“Are you in pain?” Anakin asks.

Ahsoka frowns. “A little.” They must have given her painkillers, but she isn’t going to take her comfort for granted — especially not after being literally skewered through the middle. It’s funny how her brain filters out what must have been an incredibly traumatic injury, even by field standards.

Anakin exhales, relieved she was sedated through what would have been an agonising twelve hours.

“Never knew you were such a good healer,” she says absentmindedly, once she has set the glass back down with a gentle _clink_. The water hasn’t done much to wash the taste of bacta out of her mouth, but as least her throat doesn’t feel like sandpaper anymore.

“Not a word,” Anakin says. “Not a word. I think I’ve broken half a page of rules.” It’s strange how he doesn’t seem too concerned about it. And he didn’t really _break_ the rules so much as _bend_ them.

“That’s… not unusual. Not for you,” she replies with a smile.

“Here I am, supposedly setting a good example for my padawan.”

“You _are_ setting a good example. I’m not dead!”

Obi-Wan chooses this exact moment to walk back into the room. Upon hearing “ _I’m not dead!_ ” he raises his eyebrows knowingly. Anakin scowls.

“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan acknowledges with a smile. “Glad to see you’re awake. Feeling better?” A pointless question. _Obviously_ she’s feeling better.

“I am, Master Kenobi. How long was I not awake?”

“About a day.”

“Hmm,” she hums, turning her head to look at her Master, who nods. He must have slept while she was unconscious, because the bags under his eyes are no more prominent than they usually are. He still looks a mess, though.

The hand on his shoulder jolts Anakin from his almost-daydream. “I’m going to borrow your Master for a moment. Won’t be long,” Obi-Wan says to Ahsoka. “I’ll return him as soon as I’m done.”

Ahsoka nods, and Obi-Wan smiles gratefully, steering Anakin out of the room by the shoulders.

“We need to talk about what you did,” Obi-Wan says, hushed, once they’re out of earshot.

“I only healed her,” Anakin says. “I didn’t break the code.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “You didn’t ‘only heal her.’ You transferred your life force to her. You don't need me to tell you that transference is not an ability Jedi are supposed to have, much less use.” _It’s a Darksider’s skill_ , he doesn’t add.

“Then why am I still alive?” Anakin asks. He does know all this already, but he clearly doesn’t realise the extent of what he’s done.

Obi-Wan puts on his signature exasperated expression, the one Anakin has seen too many times in all the years he has known his master. “You do know you have a ridiculous amount of midichlorians, right?”

“Oh,” Anakin says. Then his face falls. “You’re going to report me to the council?”

Obi-Wan looks conflicted. “In good conscience, I should,” he says. “It’s already suspicious that Ahsoka healed so quickly and remarkably well, especially from an injury of that degree. But I’m not going to report you —“

Anakin looks surprised at that. Obi-Wan Kenobi, sacrificing integrity?

“— because I know Ahsoka would never recover from her guilt if they took you away as her Master.”

Understandable. Obi-Wan Kenobi, sacrificing integrity for compassion.

“And if they ask?” Anakin counters.

“Then you have no choice,” Obi-Wan replies softly. “I will do all I can to help you keep your padawan. Force knows she needs it as much as you do. But do not brush this off as something trivial, Anakin. You can’t go around transferring your life force to every dying person you see.”

* * *

“How did you do it?” Ahsoka asks softly. “How did you survive?” It’s been a couple days since she woke up in the medbay. She’s lying on the couch in his quarters with her head in his lap, dozing in and out. The gentle caress of her Master’s hand on her lekku is doing wonders to put her to sleep, and Anakin is completely aware of that.

She doesn’t ask to learn, but to understand. Anakin suspects she heard the conversation between him and Obi-Wan. After all, her hearing is much better than a human’s.

She doesn’t ask _why_ he did it, either. That part explained itself when his shields crumbled while she bled out on the field.

Anakin shrugs, tracing the line between the blue and white of her lekku. “I guess I just got lucky.”

Ahsoka hums contentedly. “Did you mean it?”

The question has been pressing into the front of her mind since the second she heard those words. She knows her master has never paid heed to the ban on attachments, but to be so open for his padawan? _To_ his padawan?

Anakin’s hand stills on her montrals. “Mean what?” he asks, even though he knows what she means. He wants to hear her say it.

Ahsoka looks away, a little embarrassed. He eyes follow the weave of his tunic fabric. “When you lowered your shields. When I was. Bleeding.” _Dying._

“Said what?” He’s being a little mean, probably, but he wants her to know there’s no shame in saying it. That the word “ _love_ ” is not taboo.

“You love. Me,” she blurts out. “I mean, you didn’t _say_ it, but I saw —“

“You forget that you almost died, Ahsoka,” he says softly. “I can’t imagine what I would do if I lost you. And don’t even start on attachments. I know what you’re thinking, and frankly, I don’t care.”

They’ve been over this many times before. His attachment to her makes him so strong but so vulnerable. If she had died, he would have shattered in an instant. He might have fallen. For her.

“I do love you, Ahsoka,” he says. “And I’m well aware that your master, I should be lecturing you on the dangers of attachment. But if attachment is what kept you alive, I’m not going to go down that path. That’s Obi-Wan’s job.” She smiles at that.

“You don’t have to feel obligated to return the feeling,” he adds. “I don’t expect you to. Be a good Jedi. You have all the galaxy’s potential in you.”

Ahsoka wants to knock it into Anakin’s head, that _he_ is the best Jedi she has ever known. but she chooses instead to laugh softly. “Nice try.”

 _Do you?_ he asks.

_I do, she replies._

Anakin leans down to press a kiss against her forehead. Ahsoka closes her eyes. She feels so warm, cared for. Loved.

_How did she end up with the best master in the whole galaxy?_

Anakin smiles down as her, reading that thought right through their bond.

 _Guess you just got lucky_ , he replies.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m free at last!! my exams are finally done for this term, so i might start to churn out more writing in the next couple of weeks. i hope i did this piece justice —fulcrumxtano and JoNoelle requested more ahsoka and anakin whumps. i pray i delivered to some degree of satisfaction, even though my heart shattered and came back together about 12 times in the process of writing this :)
> 
> come chat with me or shoot me an ask/prompt on [tumblr](https://lynnpaper.tumblr.com/), or leave a comment if you like. i squeeze the joy out of the little number that appears next to my inbox :D


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